I am a teenage atheist in the small town of Thomas W.V. Thomas is a very rural town with 4 churches and a population of about 600 people, 99% of whom are Christian. I the only atheist at my school (the only other person of non-Christian religion is a good friend of mine who is Buddhist) which means may people judge me for my beliefs, and yet I live a better life than most of them these people.
As an atheist, I believe there is no God and everything that happens in the world happens through the scientific process and this leads many to ask me the question “How can you live a good life knowing there is no point after you die?”. Whenever I am asked this question, I think of how good my life has been without any religious intervention.
One of the major things that is good about being an atheist is that I don’t have to be constantly afraid of suffering eternal damnation for tiny mistakes in my life. This means that while I do try to live a pure fulfilling life, I don’t have to be afraid that God will send me to Hell for using his name in vain, or for getting angry at someone for being rude to me. Many people would think this means that I live an entire life of sin while I actually never get in trouble at school and maintain an A average in my classes (most of which are advanced or honors).
Another reason my life has been good without God is that it means I get to see the world from a different perspective than other people.
This means that while many of my friends would view something good that happens to them as an act of God, I get to see that the reason I got lucky was just chance or perhaps because of the way I treated someone and they decide to return the favor with a candy bar or something.
Without a God, I am able to realize that all my accomplishments are mine and not due to some magical man in the sky who decided to smile upon me today and let do something good. This also means I have no one to blame but myself when misfortune happens upon me, which means that I feel more obligated to do something to make up for it and not pray to God for forgiveness.
So in conclusion, I feel that I have a good life without God because it allows me to live the way I want to live. This means I can be a mean person or a nice person, depending on what I see would be a good way to live, without fearing what God will do or say about it. I think the best thing about living without God is that I get to sleep in on Sundays!
